Pages

Thursday, 13 April 2017

Brutal Police Lathicharge on Punjab University Campus Injures Dozens of Students

Mega Drive for Commercialisation of Education Underway

66 Students Booked Falsely on Charges of Sedition, Rioting and Destruction of Property

- WSP
Reporter/ 11.4.2017

Dozens of
Students have been injured, few profusing badly with limbs
broken, after the police resorted to a brutal lathicharge on Punjab University
Campus today.

Lathicharge
was sequel to the use of water cannons and tear gas shells by the police on the
campus. Use of violence by the police was completely unprovoked and in response
to a peaceful protest by the students.

The students
had been protesting on the campus against unprecedented fee hike by the
authorities upto 11 times of the existing fee scales, ranging between INR 2000
to 82000.

To water
down the astronomical hike, the University authorities lied that the fee hike
was only 12.5 percent. By this they meant only the average hike in tution fee.

Fee hike is unprecedented
and so steep. For example in B. Pharma course the fee is raised from Rs. 5080 annually
to Rs. 50,000/-, in Masters of Journalism from Rs.5290/- to Rs.30,000/- and in
Dental course from Rs. 86,400 to Rs.1.50 lakh.

Student
protests came up after the news of the Senate of the University clearing the
proposal for the fee hike, spread on the campus. Students came out in protest
for a strike on the campus.

Police had
made preparation for a showdown on the campus and suppression of the student
protest by violence. Water cannon, Tear gas shells and lathi wielding companies
of armed police awaited near the VC office for students. As the students
demanded a hearing by the VC of their grievances against the fee hike and tried
to barge their way inside the VC office as VC refused to listen to them, the
police unleashed violence. The manner in which police had acted clearly
demonstrated that the same was premediated and well planned beforehand.

The decision
of the Senate has come after the instructions of the UGC to all Universities signaling
withdrawal of all grants by the government to them and demanding that the
Universities must become self-reliant. This signaling by the UGC, the body that
was formed primarily to decide and disburse the grants to Universities, is an
apparent act of self-abnegation, a fallout of the overall policy of the central
government to completely pull back from all social funding in public sector,
especially health and education.

Last budget has proposed 16.54% cut in budget allocations for education. While the school education sector has got an outlay of Rs 42,219.50 crore for 2015-16, the higher education sector has got Rs 26,855 crore.

The
University had been reeling under the financial crunch for long because of the callousness
of the successive governments, that includes, not only very low budget allocations,
but also erratic payments of the same to the Universities. For last many
months, even the regular salaries of teaching and non-teaching employees could
not be paid in time for these reasons.

Punjab
University, situated in Chandigarh, a Union territory, is by and large a
Central University though not so notified. Its annual deficit goes around 546
Crore, 40% of which is financed by
Punjab Government while 60% by the Central Govt. through MHRD.

The
withdrawal of all grants and subsidies by the government in education sector,
especially in higher education, is accentuated by a malicious design to boost
the private sector. The big investors, both domestic and foreign, had been
eyeing the higher education sector as one of the most profitable sectors with 7
crore aspiring students across the country. Private institutions would get big impetus
if the public education funded by the government, gets subverted.

If the
government is arguing that the hike would not affect the affiliated colleges,
it is for the simple reason that these colleges already have very high fee
structures. They had already been working as institutions of self-financing.

The pro-corporate
and pro-investor education policy of the central government, pulling out all
public expenditure in education sector, in its turn is in compliance of the WTO
mandates that make it obligatory upon the subject governments to finish all
grants and subsidies in public sector within a time frame. This is in
consonance with a new world regime implemented through the global trade
agreements like the WTO that debar all national barricading, subsidizing,
public funding of social sectors etc. by the member states and instead open
them to global exploitation of the capital for profits.

The concept
of ‘self-financing’ of public institutions, is not the luxury or choice of the
governments. It is imposed upon them by the ever intensifying economic crisis
that these governments have so zealously been attempting to hide from the
public. The steeply rising repayments of the global loans and spiralling expenditure
on defence and security, coupled with ever increasing luxuries of bureaucracy,
are compounding the crisis to its zenith. People would be squeezed to pay for
this crisis through their nose!

6%-10% of the
budget allocations must go to the education at least in order to satisfy the
minimum required levels of public education. However the real allocation does
not cross even 4%, while expenditure remains even below that. Instead of
raising this allocation and expenditure on public education, the big-bourgeois governments
propose to wipe it out after gradually reducing it year after year.

Calculated
agenda of central government, is to privatize and commercialise education. The commercialisation
of education, is part of the overall pro-corporate agenda of the government to subject
all public sector and utility services to the profit oriented drive of the
big-business.

All out withdrawal from social spending by the government is part of the austerity programs being dictated by the World Bank and IMF. Punjab University is not alone to suffer under the axe of austerity. In Allahabad University also, there is proposal for an increase in the fee upto 3 times alongside drastic seat cut in JNU and at Vardha. The move for privatisation of DU colleges is underway while fellowships in Jadhavpur University are wiped out.

Private Universities
and self-financing colleges are dens of exploitation of teachers and loot of students
and hotbed of all sorts corrupt and malpractices. There are no parameters to
maintain any academic standards, that includes employment of faculties. Untrained
fellows from the same departments are employed on contract for teaching and are
subjected to immense exploitation without any job security. These institutions
run on extreme loot of the students that go to the coffers of the few who run
them, in the form of super-profits.

A
considerable part of the whole education sector is already occupied by such
private Universities and colleges. Whatever remains of it, is being dismantled in a calculated
manner by the governments and the authorities under them.

It is this
conspiracy against which the students of Punjab University were forced to struggle
and resist.

The Police,
in its over-zeal to please the political bosses, booked 66 students for ‘sedition’
besides charging them for various other offences under the Penal Code that
include rioting and destruction of property. After an uproar, shamefaced and
taking a volte-face later, the police claimed that the charges under sedition
would be dropped if no evidence is found.

The ardour
with which the government has attempted to suppress the student opposition to its
policy of commercialization of education, speaks for itself. It demonstrates
beyond all pale of doubt that the pro-business governments would leave no stone
unturned to assist the profiteers and destroy whatever is left of public sector
and public spending.

Blaming the
students for violence, Eish Singhal, the Superintendent of Police, UT,
Chandigarh, churned out the white lies that the students had attacked the
police first. “We resorted to force after students turned violent” claimed Singhal. However, the videos clearly show that the police was the attacker without
even least provocation, only after the students had insisted to meet the VC and
tried to enter his office.

Even after the
dispersal of students, police personnel can be heard in video saying that, “some
of them should be caught at least to teach a lesson”. The police really taught
that lesson by brutally attacking some students.

Those who
are arrested by the police are the ones who tried to take asylum inside the
Gurudwara on the campus. Police surrounded it and compelled the students to
come out and then arrested them, beat them up and falsely charged them for
rioting.

Adding further
lies, Eish claimed, “Police vehicles were also damaged and five-six police officials
have sustained injuries”. All this is police fabrication that has not even a grain
of truth.

Echoing the
police version, Corporate media blamed the students for violence. Newspapers
and media in one voice screamed against the students defending not only the fraudulent
education policy of the government but the brutal repression upon the student
opposition by the Police too. The PTI, UNI, Business Standard, Times of India,
NDTV, Zee TV and all in one voice supported the government and the police. They
displayed edited and doctored videos of the incident suppressing the
provocative and violent role of the police.

More
interestingly the official Student’s Union, Punjab University Campus Student’s
Council, PUCSC, and its leaders were exposed for being complacent with the
University authorities, after Prof. Dinesh Gupta, Dean of Instructions at the
University, told the senate that the Student Union has been kept in loop.
Later, justifying the decision of fee hike, PUCSC President Nishant Kaushal,
claimed that that, “The body would ensure that enough scholarships and
freeships are provided to the students so that no meritorious student is denied
education because of his economic background.

This in
itself is a fraud upon the students. The scholarships and freeships are limited
to 50% concessions in tution fee only while the hike involves far more than
tution fee.

The betrayal
of the students by their own leaders holding positions in in official Union is
no surprise. The Union bosses everywhere are in league with authorities and have
become their trozan horses for all malicious drives. Rank and file must
overthrow these false leaders and tear apart the official Unions they represent.
We must get rid of this malware sooner than later.

While the University
administration is citing the anticipated deficit of Rs.244 Crores this year as the underlying the reason behind the fee hike, the students despite police violence are undeterred
in their demand for complete rollback of the fee hike.

When it comes to financing the education and health for common man, there is always dearth of funds. However there is no dearth of funds when the same gets spent upon the bogus projects like "Man ki Baat" to the tune of 1100 crores, or the loans of thousands of crores of big-business are waived at one stroke.Needless to say that capitalism in decay and crisis cannot give the people even this minimum. In countries of backward capitalism like India, the consequences of further survival of it are going to be disastrous for majority of us. Without delay, we have to transcend capitalism to step over to socialism through a revolution from below. This is the only way out of the capitalist loot, exploitation and barbarism!

All deficit
of the Universities must be paid from the huge exchequer that Central and State
governments collect from the people in the form of various direct and indirect taxes.
The very concept of the self-financing the public utilities after paying huge
taxes to the governments, must be opposed tooth and nail. Not only the fee and
charges for utilities like education and health must not be increased but they
must be abolished at all forthwith. Free education and free health services
must be available to every citizen without any payments.